Citizenship ceremonies too important to drop – Winnipeg Free Press

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

Yet another reminder of the importance of citizenship ceremonies:

“I Swear ….”

For the past few months, there have been rumblings that the federal government would like to do away with Canadian citizenship ceremonies.

This is very disappointing.

Just over a week ago there was an article on this possibility in the Free Press.

As someone who has presided over hundreds of ceremonies, in-person and virtually, and sworn in over 50,000 new citizens, I would like to weigh in on this topic by adding my voice to those across Canada who are quietly screaming that to do away with Canadian citizenship ceremonies might prove to be an irreversible tragedy.

Virtual ceremonies were introduced as a result of the pandemic. However, now that life is regaining more normalcy, the federal government is exploring how to take that cost-saving measure one step further and eliminate all citizenship ceremonies.

To draw a simple parallel, imagine students in Grade 12 who are graduating only to be told that there will be no celebration, no ceremony, no anything… because they will simply receive their graduation certificate at some point, down the road, in the mail.

Becoming a citizen in one of the freest, wealthiest, most beautiful nations that has ever existed in the history of the world is a big deal. The in-person ceremony is an occasion, an unforgettable event, that the new citizens have hoped for, worked for, studied for and dreamed of for years. One has only to attend a ceremony anywhere in this country, and you will instantly recognize that everyone who has had the good fortune to gain citizenship to this nation views it as one of the greatest moments in their life.

I often tell those about to take their oaths that this day is a milestone. They will never have, or experience, another day like this, ever! The simple truth is that most people who participate in an in-person ceremony remember the event and the date for the rest of their lives.

Many people attend these ceremonies in their native dress, some dress in red and white, while others come in their Sunday best. The sheer delight and joy one sees in the adults and children as they receive their citizenship certificate, along with a small Canada flag and pin, is almost palpable.

When a ceremony ends, everyone sings O Canada. In almost every in-person ceremony you will see some people literally weeping with joy as they sing ‘their’ national anthem.

I’ve had the honour of presiding over ceremonies in the VIA train station, the provincial exhibition fairgrounds in Brandon, CFB Shilo, RCMP “D” Division, the new Winnipeg Police Station, Grace Hospital, Winnipeg City Hall, the Manitoba Legislative Building, the Western Canada Aviation Museum, Government House, Investors Group Field, Lower Fort Garry, on the beach at Clear Lake, the Manitoba Museum, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and dozens of school gymnasiums, cultural centres and community clubs throughout the province. I’ve presided over a ceremony by someone’s bedside in a hospital and also done a ceremony in a downtown citizenship office for someone who lived in Churchill and was on his way to Antarctica.

Regardless of where the ceremony takes place or how big or small an event it is, I have never, not once, seen anyone receive their citizenship who was not overjoyed beyond belief at their good fortune to become a Canadian.

Rather than eliminate all ceremonies, or all in-person ceremonies in favour of doing most ceremonies virtually — hold more in-person ceremonies. Yes, there will be occasions when a virtual ceremony has to be performed because of remoteness to accommodate those becoming new citizens. However, those ceremonies should reinforce the importance of in-person ceremonies wherever and whenever possible.

I also often tell new citizens to remember that the freedoms they will receive as Canadians were paid for with lives and bravery. Canadians played a major role in both world wars, the Korean War, the Afghanistan War and many peacekeeping initiatives over the past several decades.

Citizenship in this nation is a great honour for all Canadians — those born here and those who chose to live here. Let’s never, ever lose sight of how lucky we all are to call this wonderful land our home.

One member of Parliament, attending a ceremony several years ago, commented on the size of the lottery jackpots saying “Don’t worry about winning the lottery. You’ve already won the biggest prize of all. You have won the ‘lottery of life’ by becoming a Canadian.”

Canada is too strong, too beautiful and too respected as a nation to have its citizenship watered down, diminished and devalued.

To become a citizen of this magnificent nation is a ceremony we should embrace, honour and treasure.

Always.

Dwight MacAulay is the former chief of protocol for the government of Manitoba and has been a presiding official for Canadian citizenship ceremonies for 12 years.

Source: Citizenship ceremonies too important to drop – Winnipeg Free Press

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Barrett: Birth Tourism – An Opinion

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

Yet another sensible commentary by a medical professional:

Personally, one of the things that I find most enjoyable about my position as an academic chair is the collaborative discussion amongst fellow academic chairs in a monthly meeting, facilitated by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC). Recently, we brought up the topic of birth tourism, which prompted lively discussion, passionate views and the suggestion to write this editorial. Despite different jurisdictions, approaches, and models, there was unanimity on one aspect, and that is to clearly define birth tourism; the “deliberate travel to another country with the purpose of giving birth in that country”. Birth tourism is often motivated to attain citizenship in the long term or to attain medical care that is perceived to be better than in the home country. It is important to delineate that birth tourism is NOT a birth occurring in Canada by a person who happens to be away from their country of citizenship, because of work, study, or as a refugee.

The concept of and the practice of birth tourism is complicated from the patient’s, the healthcare team’s, the facility’s, and the healthcare system’s perspectives. Birth tourism has been recognized as an issue in Canada for some time, but became less prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic with travel restrictions in place for international travel. Now, as we struggle because our health human resources are in crisis and our systems are struggling in every province and territory, the issue of birth tourism and its impact on our healthcare providers, our patients, our hospitals, and our healthcare systems is a matter of concern once again.

In my personal opinion, Canadian hospitals and physicians should have absolutely zero tolerance for birth tourism, declining to accept these patients into care while concurrently ensuring that patients in Canada for other legitimate reasons, who tend to be underserved, are able to receive unrestricted healthcare without imposing undue financial burden or stress.

In my previous life as a busy clinician, I remember the frustration when the leadership team of a hospital essentially declined to provide services to any patient without provincial insurance coverage, unless they were a refugee, a student, or were in Canada for another work-related reason. Of course, patients presenting as emergencies would be treated without hesitation. In retrospect, despite enjoying the direct re-imbursement that this practice facilitates, I realize now that the leadership team were correct.

They are correct because the facilitation of birth tourism causes everyone to suffer. Mostly, of course, our patient, Canadians, or those here in our country as refugees or here to work or to study.

I do not have to provide any annotated references for the sorry state of affairs in our hospitals in which we currently do not have the resources to provide an acceptable level for those requiring obstetrical and gynaecologic services. Waiting time for uro-gynaecological service is more than 18 months in most of our centres. The thought that even ONE patient seeking birth tourism would potentially take either an obstetrical spot out of our allocated hospital quota, or even worse, a spot on the gynaecologic waiting list, should be enough to unite all in a position that anything that in any way facilitates this practice should be frowned upon.

But that is not the only reason; our hospitals suffer too. A recent publication points to the fact that routinely, hospitals are left with significant shortfalls when a planned low-risk birth goes wrong and babies spend months in the intensive care unit. More specifically, the birth tourist had planned to spend CAD 10 000 for the birth of a baby – not $300 000 caring for the baby when things go wrong.

Finally, the patients may also suffer. There are many reports of people being fleeced by unethical individuals who have charged them large sums of money up-front to facilitate this industry. Finally, although I will not provide specific examples, we the healthcare providers may suffer too. Tempted by large sums of money, even the best of us can be tempted into poor practice.

In my opinion, we must firmly champion the provision of care to patients who are in Canada for work or study or as refugees without demanding excessive payments from them. We must not tempt ourselves to take advantage of the vulnerable or the unlucky. Instead we should unite in a firm stand against birth tourism by refusing to accept the non-urgent planned and deliberate birth tourists in our hospitals, rather than devising elaborate flow diagrams and/or fee schedules that facilitate and may in reality encourage the process.

Our country, our healthcare providers, and our system deserve this.

John F.R. Barrett, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, McMaster University

Source: Birth Tourism – An Opinion

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with

Influx of Russians prompts Argentina to set restrictions on immigration

2023/06/16 Leave a comment

Of note, applying to temporary residents, equivalent of extended visitor visa in my reading. Original story from Clarin: “Enojo ruso” en Argentina: qué condición cambió para que puedan residir en el país.

Will be interesting to see how effective is implementation and how effective this financial requirement is.

Having a child born in Argentina gives its parents the right to legal residence, and entitles them to a passport two years after the offspring’s birth. The Argentinian government has adopted a decree restricting the mass influx of Russian citizens into the country, especially pregnant women.

As the Argentine newspaper “Clarin” explained, the decree does not apply directly to Russians, but to all foreigners, but the amendment serves to stop the mass influx of Russian citizens to Argentina initiated in March 2022.

The main change to the legislation approved at the initiative of the National Migration Authority (DNM) is that temporary residents are required to have annual receipts of USD 24,000 per person in an account established in Argentina.

The new legislation also obliges the precise source of the sums deposited in the bank, which, as envisaged by the amendment, cannot come from the earnings of freelancers, as is commonly practised by Russians in Argentina.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, several thousand Russian children have been born in Argentina, which the authorities in Buenos Aires consider suspicious. According to them, there is an allegation of an attempt to extort an Argentine passport, which allows visa-free travel to 171 countries worldwide.

Source: Influx of Russians prompts Argentina to set restrictions on immigration

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Le ministère de l’Immigration «s’entête» à ne pas reconnaître les évaluations de français québécoises

2023/06/13 Leave a comment

Accepted for Canadian citizenship but not for Quebec permanent residency. Understandable complaint:

Des épreuves standardisées s’apprêtent à être instaurées dans les cours de francisation, a appris Le Devoir, mais les immigrants continueront à devoir passer des tests entièrement conçus en France pour leur dossier d’immigration. Parallèlement, un immigrant peut utiliser ses cours de francisation du Québec pour devenir citoyen canadien, mais pas pour demander la résidence permanente dans la province.

Plusieurs personnes du milieu de l’enseignement et de la francisation ne décolèrent pas devant ces nouveaux paradoxes. Elles réitèrent leurs appels à créer un test québécois qui puisse servir à prouver le niveau de français nécessaire pour immigrer ou à recommencer à reconnaître les cours de francisation. Un tel projet a déjà été défendu à l’intérieur même du ministère, a-t-on aussi appris.

« Pourquoi ne pas faire d’une pierre deux coups ? On pourrait faire l’arrimage entre les examens certifiés en francisation et ce que le ministère admet comme preuve de compétence en français », suggère par exemple Tania Longpré, enseignante elle-même, qui termine un doctorat en didactique des langues secondes.

Les immigrants en francisation doivent déjà passer des évaluations à la fin de chaque niveau de cours. La nouveauté est que ces examens deviendront des « épreuves ministérielles », nous a confirmé le ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI).

« Désormais, nous devrons tous donner le même examen dans les centres de service scolaire » à travers le Québec, illustre une enseignante en francisation qui a demandé l’anonymat par peur de représailles. Elle précise que les enseignants se font fréquemment rappeler leur « devoir de réserve », d’où la demande récurrente que leur nom ne soit pas révélé.

Le MIFI ne montre cependant pas l’intention d’utiliser ces épreuves à plus large échelle en les acceptant comme preuve de compétence dans les demandes de résidence permanente par exemple.

Depuis 2020, il ne reconnaît plus non plus les attestations qui émanent des cours de francisation. Ce ministère a pourtant dépensé plus de 168 millions de dollars dans les services de francisation durant le dernier exercice financier.

Les immigrants qui n’ont pas fait d’études secondaires ou postsecondaires en français ou qui ne sont pas membres d’un ordre doivent donc passer l’un des tests admissibles pour demander la résidence permanente. Ces tests sont tous conçus entièrement en France, corrigés en partie là-bas et critiqués de toutes parts depuis plusieurs années.

L’ironie est aussi que le gouvernement fédéral reconnaît de son côté la francisation comme une preuve suffisante pour obtenir la citoyenneté, une étape qui vient après la résidence permanente pour les nouveaux arrivants.

Le MIFI indique seulement que des « réflexions sont en cours » pour ajouter de nouveaux moyens pour démontrer les compétences en français. La ministre de l’Immigration Christine Fréchette affirme quant à elle que le travail d’adaptation des tests doit se poursuivre.

L’une des deux instances françaises responsables des tests, la Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris Île-de-France, affirme avoir déjà « une demande forte de la part du ministère […] d’inclure davantage de référents culturels québécois ». Elle avance que l’accent québécois « est présent à 35 % environ dans l’épreuve de compréhension orale », ce qui est contraire à ce que nous avons constaté.

Un chantier pas si facile

Le ministère de l’Éducation avait déjà entrepris des « travaux qui précédaient l’arrivée de Francisation Québec », nous précise-t-on dans un courriel conjoint des deux ministères. Nos sources indiquent que l’instauration des examens standardisés serait déjà en marche pour les niveaux 4 à 7, une information que les ministères n’ont pas confirmée.

« Tout est sous embargo, comme si c’était un secret d’État, alors que c’est une question de cohérence », souligne Mme Longpré.

L’idée de créer un test québécois pour l’immigration ne date pas d’hier. Elle était déjà promue à l’intérieur du MIFI après l’instauration des tests linguistiques faits en France en 2010, a confié au Devoir un ancien haut fonctionnaire. Il a demandé que son identité ne soit pas révélée, car son obligation de « discrétion » est encore applicable, même s’il a cessé d’occuper ses fonctions.

Le coût de ce test a même déjà été évalué à l’interne à environ un million de dollars pour la création et au même montant annuellement pour l’administrer. « On ne nous a jamais autorisés à le créer, même si la discussion revient éternellement », note cette personne. Il suggère que le MIFI pourrait ajouter un test, sans nécessairement remplacer les tests de France, et ainsi offrir ce choix « pour donner la chance de réussir le parcours migratoire ».

Les tests linguistiques ont été instaurés à la suite d’un rapport du vérificateur général du Québec de 2010 sur la sélection des immigrants. On y jugeait que les points attribués au français étaient « laissés au jugement » des agents d’immigration, et qu’il manquait d’information dans le dossier pour justifier le nombre de points alloués.

Une grande proportion d’immigrants passait au départ le test « partout à l’international », après avoir appris le français ailleurs qu’au Québec, note Christophe Chénier, professeur en évaluation du français langue seconde à l’Université de Montréal. Or, les immigrants sont de plus en plus nombreux à séjourner d’abord en tant que temporaires au Québec, et donc à apprendre la langue avec nos spécificités.

La question financière est incontournable selon lui. L’élaboration d’un tel test requiert plusieurs années, une équipe d’une dizaine de personnes et des mises à l’essai auprès de milliers de personnes. Il faut en outre compter le développement de structures informatiques, de points de service, de formation des évaluateurs, de mises à jour du contenu et autres.

« La question fondamentale est que peu importe l’outil utilisé, il doit idéalement respecter des normes de qualité très élevées, à la hauteur des enjeux pour lesquels on l’utilise, car la décision d’immigrer est l’une des rares grandes décisions que l’on prend dans une vie. »

Source: Le ministère de l’Immigration «s’entête» à ne pas reconnaître les évaluations de français québécoises

Filed under Immigration, Language Tagged with ,

Amended bill that would extend citizenship rights to some born abroad heads to House

2023/06/09 Leave a comment

CPC objections to process are valid. Practicality of implementing change is also in question as experience with previous retention provisions illustrates:

A committee of MPs approved Citizenship Act changes that allow some born abroad to adopt their Canadian parent’s citizenship Wednesday, despite objections from Conservatives about a lack of due process.

In 2009, the Conservative government changed the law to make it so that Canadian parents who were born abroad could not pass down their citizenship unless their child was born in Canada.

The NDP has proposed a change that would grant citizenship to the child if the Canadian parent can prove they spent at least three years in Canada.

The new rule, which is supported by the Liberals, was tacked onto a Conservative senator’s private member’s bill at the House of Commons immigration committee.

Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec called the amendments “vandalism” of the original spirit of the bill, because the changes were so drastic.

“That is a concern to me, that this might happen to any one of us with our bills in the future, where the content might be deleted and replaced with things we don’t agree with,” Kmiec said during debate earlier this week.

The Conservatives are now in the awkward position of sponsoring a bill in the Commons that they don’t support and won’t vote for.

The testimony and drawn-out debate over the bill and amendments at the committee went on for 12 meetings, sparking concerns the Conservatives would prevent the changes from reaching the House at all.

The committee had until June 14 to finish reviewing the amended bill, or else it would have been sent back to the House of Commons without the new changes.

In its original version, Conservative Sen. Yonah Martin’s bill would have granted citizenship to a small number of people who were stripped of their Canadian legal status between 1977 and 1981 because of a quirk in the law.

The NDP and Liberal amendments make much more sweeping changes, including tweaks to ensure that children adopted by Canadian parents from abroad would have the same citizenship rights as those who were born in or immigrated to Canada.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner says the bill will now face extra scrutiny and holdups because the proper process wasn’t followed.

She repeatedly expressed concerns about making major changes to the Citizenship Act without consulting experts or even having an idea of how many people could be affected.

Conservatives also pushed for tougher requirements for parents who wish to prove their connection to Canada, but their ideas were dismissed by other members on the committee.

“We came into this all in agreement on passing this bill expeditiously,” Rempel Garner said during the debate earlier this week. “My sense is that is not going to be the case.”

The revised legislation will need to make its way through another vote in the House before the changes are deliberated by the Senate.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said she’s hopeful the changes will be realized, and children born abroad will have a chance at inheriting Canadian citizenship.

“I remain optimistic that at the end of the day, people will put aside the partisan politics,” she said.

Source: Amended bill that would extend citizenship rights to some born …

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New Quebec Investor Immigration Program Details Met With Hesitation

2023/06/09 Leave a comment

Written from an immigration legal perspective and the comparison with other jurisdictions is of interest.

This is simply buying residency and later citizenship without any material contribution to the economy given the small amounts and passive investment approach and essentially is an implicit subsidy to investment dealers and trust companies. The amounts are ridiculously low in any case.

We know from the previous Quebec program that many who entered the program eventually left Quebec, often to British Columbia. We will see if the French language commitments during the first two years are tracked and enforced.

The upcoming relaunch of the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP), known for its popularity as Canada’s leading business immigration program for the past two decades, is likely to raise some doubts among some foreign investors and others who are familiar with investor immigrant programs. Regulations for the program were just released. The revised program aims to attract investors by offering a passive investment immigration pathway without the requirement of establishing a business in Canada and actively managing it.

One notable change is the exclusive participation of regulated investment dealers and trust companies as financial intermediaries. This ensures investor confidence and provides a mechanism for agents to receive compensation. Additionally, the Quebec Government guarantees the investment, enabling financial intermediaries to arrange financing for applicants, further enhancing the appeal of the program.

The revised QIIP introduces several new requirements for the principal applicant. To be eligible, they must demonstrate a legally accumulated net worth of at least $ 1.5 million USD (C$ 2 million). Furthermore, the applicant must possess a high school (secondary) diploma and a minimum of two years of management experience within the five years preceding the application.

Once approved, the principal applicant will be required to make specific financial contributions. These include a $750,000 USD ($1 million CAD) five-year investment through an authorized financial intermediary, guaranteed by the Quebec Government. It is worth noting that financing options are available for this investment. In addition, a non-refundable contribution of $ 150,000 US ($200,000 CAD) to the Government of Quebec will be required.

Upon approval and completion of the financial contributions, the principal applicant and their family will be granted a temporary stay in Canada for three years. This temporary status allows the family members to work and study in Quebec, facilitating their integration into the local community. However, within the first two years of arriving in Quebec, the principal applicant must fulfill additional requirements. They must achieve a Level 7 out of 12 on the Echelle québécoise des niveaux de compétence en français, demonstrating their French language proficiency. Moreover, the applicant or their spouse must spend at least six months in Quebec, with an additional six months of residence required for either the applicant or the spouse.

Following the fulfillment of these requirements, the principal applicant and their dependents will receive Selection Certificates (CSQ), allowing them to apply for permanent residence from within Canada.

To summarize, the QIIP envisions an investment of roughly $ 750,000 U.S. refunded in five years interest-free. Details about financing such investments are not yet known but the speculation has been it will be about $375,000 U.S. as a one-time non-refundable payment consisting of the $ 150,000 US. to Quebec and the remainder being the cost of a loan to pay for the program. A big question related to the program will be the processing time for approval. Under the old program, it ran as long as five years although French speakers got through in about two years counting the provincial and federal processing that was required. The key impediments of the program for many investors are the French language requirement and the six months physical presence and one-year residence element to achieve unconditional permanent residence.

Comparison Programs:

Canadian Start-Up Visa Program

In contrast to the QIIP, the federal Canadian Start-Up Visa Program provides an alternative pathway to Canadian permanent residence. To be eligible, applicants must have a qualifying business and obtain a letter of support from a designated organization. They must also meet the language requirements, demonstrate proficiency in English or French, and have sufficient settlement funds. The program focuses on innovative businesses, allowing applicants to actively manage their ventures within Canada. Under that program investors normally pay somewhere between say $ 100,000 to $ 125,000 USD to make the necessary arrangements to be approved for permanent residence through a Canadian sponsoring organization that certifies the bona fides of the investor’s business plan. A key difference is that the Start-Up program requires the active involvement of the investor with an innovative new idea whereas the Quebec program is a passive program. However, judging by current processing times, the processing times for the Start-Up program and the Quebec program will likely be similar.

New Brunswick Program

Under the New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program for investors you must be ready to invest under $95,000 USD (C$ 125,000) in a business for a period of not less than one year and the business has to have been established within two years of landing. To guarantee the investment is made a deposit of $ 57,000 USD (C$ 75,000) must be made with the provincial government which will be returned if the above conditions have been met. What is more, the investor must have a net worth of at least $ 225,000 USD (C$ 300,000).

Applicants are vetted by a point system used to assess them and must score 50 points to succeed. They must be between 22 and 55 years of age have sufficient English and or French language ability to actively manage a business in New Brunswick have, at a minimum, been awarded a high school diploma, and be willing to live and operate a business in New Brunswick. Applicants also must have management experience in three of the last five years. Applications must include a business plan that must be approved by an official of the Government of New Brunswick certifying the applicant has sufficient familiarity with the business climate in the province. Processing times will also be likely to be similar to the Quebec program.

The U.S. EB-5 Investor Immigration Program

The United States offers foreign investors its EB-5 investor immigration program which was created by the U.S. Congress in 1990 to attract investments and create jobs for American workers. In its most popular format, the EB-5 program enables foreign investors who invest $800,000 USD in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration approved regional center commercial project for approximately five years to get a green card. The program is a relatively passive way for investors to gain permanent residence for themselves and their families and has an attractive concurrent filing feature that enables many investors to gain work and travel status inside the U.S. while awaiting the adjudication of their internally filed adjustment of status applications. In most instances, full processing to green card status is taking about four years, although Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese applicants, are taking many years longer.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the choice of an investor immigration program depends on individual circumstances, including language proficiency, investment preferences, and long-term goals. However, the QIIP’s changes, particularly the French language requirement and temporary residency period, may deter some potential investors. As investors weigh their options, they will need to consider the various specific program requirements and their suitability for individual aspirations and objectives.

Source: New Quebec Investor Immigration Program Details Met With Hesitation

Filed under citizenship-by-investment, Immigration Tagged with , ,

Conservative filibuster threatens potential citizenship for children born abroad

2023/06/07 Leave a comment

Given the backdoor way this broader amendment was introduced to the focused bill, support the Conservatives in their filibuster, particularly that there are much more significant issues in immigration and citizenship policy.

While comment sections are not representative, it is striking how many have little sympathy for the cases cited:

Andrea Fessler found out her third daughter didn’t qualify for Canadian citizenship – even though her two older daughters did – when she arrived at the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong to register.

She’s one of many Canadians who were born abroad and whose children do not qualify for citizenship unless they are born in Canada because of a 2009 change to the law.

There is hope for a reversal of that change as members of Parliament debate amendments to the Citizenship Act. But an ongoing Conservative filibuster is threatening that hope.

Fessler was born in Israel while her father was completing a two-year post-doctoral degree in the country. Her family returned to Canada when she was two, where she grew up in Vancouver before moving to Ottawa to work as a page in the House of Commons.

All three of her girls were born abroad, but because of the legal change in 2009, Fessler’s youngest daughter, Daria, is the only one without legal ties to Canada.

“Had I known about the change of the law in 2009, it’s very possible that I would have gone to Canada to give birth, but I had absolutely no idea,” she said in an interview from her home in Hong Kong.

The NDP proposed a change that would make people like Daria eligible for citizenship if their Canadian parent can prove they spent at least three years in Canada.

The new rule, which is supported by the Liberals, was tacked onto a private member’s bill at the House of Commons immigration committee.

The committee has until June 14 to finish reviewing the amended bill, or else it will be sent back to the House of Commons without the new changes.

“I have been informing the girls of the legislative process, and how there is a hope and how hopeful I am that at some point Daria will be able to have a Canadian passport,” Fessler said.

Daria, who is now 12, dreams of going to university in Vancouver, where her family takes an annual vacation. But as it stands now, she would need to apply for an international student visa to return.

“She’s very hopeful” that that could change, Fessler said.

The private member’s bill was initially put forward by Conservative Sen. Yonah Martin to address a particular quirk in citizenship law.

The NDP and Liberals seized on the opportunity to pass amendments to the bill that would have much more wide-ranging implications for the citizenship of children born outside of the country.

That irked Conservative members of the committee, who feel the Citizenship Act is being rewritten without the appropriate study or due diligence.

“These are substantive amendments, which materially affect the Citizenship Act. So they deserve scrutiny, and we are scrutinizing them,” said Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who serves on the committee.

Ottawa grandmother Carol Sutherland-Brown said the NDP’s amendment gave her hope that her grandchildren will one day qualify for Canadian citizenship.

But that hope has dwindled with every meeting of the committee she’s watched since.

“I felt elated when the amendment went through for the connection test, and then it’s just dashed,” Sutherland-Brown said.

Sutherland-Brown met her husband in Canada before she moved to Saudi Arabia to work at a hospital with him when she was 26 years old. She was still living there when she had her daughter Marisa.

The family moved back to Canada when Marisa was two years old, and she lived there until she moved to Paris after her post-secondary graduation. There, she met her husband, and the two moved to the United Kingdom after that to start a family.

The family realized Marisa’s son Findlay wouldn’t qualify for Canadian citizenship after she started filling out the paperwork.

“He would have been sixth-generation Canadian, and that’s all robbed now,” Sutherland-Brown said.

During the filibuster, Conservative members have also put forward other potential amendments far outside the scope of the original bill, including mandating in-person citizenship ceremonies, which have taken up hours of debate before being shot down by Liberal and NDP members.

The committee has extended meetings and scheduled extra time to debate the bill, but NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said it may not be enough to beat the filibuster.

“If this continues to carry on the way in which it has, (then) there is that real possibility that the bill would be reported back to the House without us completing the work,” Kwan said.

“I’m still somewhat hopeful – I don’t know why – that this will still manage to make it to the House with the necessary amendments. I’m holding on to that shred of hope.”

If the amendments make it through committee, the expanded bill would still need to clear the House of Commons and the Senate before families like Fessler’s and Sutherland-Brown’s would be able to make their case to pass on their citizenship.

Source: Conservative filibuster threatens potential citizenship for children …

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Canucks deeply divided over one-click citizenship oath, feds told

2023/06/06 Leave a comment

Good summary of the comments received. Will be reviewing them in more detail to assess factors behind the degree of support/opposition such as citizen/applicant, individual/anonymous, English/French comment that I can derive from the comments.
One of the irritants that I encountered when looking at the comments is that one can only see 5 per page whereas other government sites allow more to allow for easier analysis (the search function is not helpful in overall assessment). Also interesting that Gazette allows anonymous comments which I inherently distrust and see little justification for except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., if the government would set up a foreign agency registry, one could reasonably expect that members of diaspora communities would need anonymity):
Allowing new Canadians to take the Oath of Citizenship by clicking a box online is a disgusting idea that will cheapen the process and open the door to fraud or a forward-thinking notion that will help decrease a backlog of citizenship applications, depending on who you ask.
That’s according to the hundreds of comments the government received about the idea over the last few months.

Others pointed out that longer wait times can delay delivery of new Canadian passports needed for travel.

“I loved my ceremony and the opportunity to mark the occasion, but it was tight getting my new passport to travel when I needed it, so the opportunity to reduce waiting times is great,” one person said.

“I have heard of many people who suffered because they had to wait for a long time to get their passports,” another said.

Critics said government backlogs and a lack of available in-person ceremonies were a poor reason to threaten the tradition.

“The objective should be trying to process the backlogs by providing more ceremony opportunities, instead of cheapening the experience by making it a self-administered click,” one wrote.

Others still worry about the possibility of fraud, though the government plans to use a secure web portal for the one-click oaths.

If approved, the changes to the citizenship regulations would come into effect as early as this month at a cost of about $5 million over 10 years.

Source: Canucks deeply divided over one-click citizenship oath, feds told

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

New Canadian babies born via birth tourism less than one per cent of all births

2023/06/05 Leave a comment

More on birth tourism based upon the Alberta study, Canadian doctors say birth tourism is on the rise. It could hurt the health care system, with data from Guelph (not a centre).

Reference to Richmond only refers to 2022, rather than pre-pandemic years when Richmond General was the epicentre of birth tourism in Canada, with almost one-quarter being birth tourism, supported by a cottage industry of birth tourism hostels:

“Birth tourists being specifically people who are coming in specifically to have a birth then go back to their original country,” said Colin Birch, a Calgary obstetrician gynecologist.

They probably come to give birth for the advantage of birthright citizenship for future gains whether it be for themselves or their family, said Birch. “There are still immense advantages of living in a place like Canada,” he said.

“Is it a big problem? Well if you look at the numbers, absolutely not. It’s small.”

“Is it big enough to be a problem? I actually think it is,” he said.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES: Birth Tourism: Rhetoric Ahead of Evidence [my opinion has changed since writing this in 2014]

Reason being Canada is in a healthcare crunch, “every bed is sacred,” said Birch.

As a healthcare system we are suffering from a capacity point of view and the expectation is to do more with less, he said.

“Canada is not really set up because of its socialized healthcare system for private pay patients and the demands that come with private pay patients,” said Birch.

The expectations from paying patients to patients covered by provincial health care are different.

“Not saying their care is different. Care is care,” he said. 

Health care is expensive and when it comes to neonatal care it is astronomical if a baby needs to be in the ICU, he said. 

The unpaid bills of the hospitals are massive, he said.

Calgary has taken a different approach to hospital bills associated with birth tourism. Birch confirmed the Calgary system requires a $15,000 deposit.

“It’s a very honest and upfront system,” said Birch. “It doesn’t pay the hospital fees no. It’s a deposit which pays basically physician fees.”

From the deposit what doesn’t get spent goes back to the patient, he said.

“We wanted to discourage the practice because it was becoming a bigger burden in Calgary,” said Birch. “The potential problem with that is the patients will then start moving to practitioners who are outside the city limits.”

It isn’t a perfect process but it’s an attempt to implement some sort of order, he said.

Prior to the deposit process birth tourism had impacts on the capacity of the hospital and ability at times to care for Canadian patients, he said.

Canada and the U.S. are the only countries in the G7 to offer birthright citizenship according to canadianimmigrationexperts.ca.

“What we need to debunk is the idea that all people who are not insured are not necessarily birth tourists,” said Birch.

“There’s a large undocumented population in the country,” he said. They are contributing members of society but are not documented, Birch said.

He wanted to make it clear undocumented folks who are uninsured are not birth tourists.

Birth tourism is not just a medical issue but a social issue that should be addressed, he said.

In the fiscal year of 2021 to 2022 Guelph General Hospital had a total of 1,707 deliveries, 11 were people from out of country. This breaks down to 0.6 per cent of deliveries were out of country.

Between April 2022 to February 2023 there were 1,543 deliveries and 18 were people from out of country who gave birth at the GGH. This is 1.2 per cent of the deliveries were out of country. 

At the other end of Canada in Vancouver much of the same occurred at Richmond Hospital, in 2022 there were 22 nonresident deliveries. This number accounts for 1.5 per cent of the total deliveries at the hospital.

“All maternity patients coming to Richmond get the care they require to deliver their child safely. Care is always triaged according to the safety of the mother and baby – it is never delayed based on residency,” stated in an email from Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH).

VCH also said it does not support marketing of maternity tourism. Births from nonresidents have not led to disruptions of maternity services, said in the email.

“VCH will never deny urgent and emergent care based on ability to pay or where a patient is from, but we do expect to be compensated as we are accountable to B.C. residents for hospital and health care services. We are committed to collecting compensation from non-residents who use our medical services,” said in the email.

Source: New Canadian babies born via birth tourism less than one per cent of all births

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with

FIRST READING: Canada’s massive (and easily fixed) birth tourism problem

2023/06/03 Leave a comment

Second article in the National Post in a week. Hopper forgot to mention that the Conservative government did make a push to end birth tourism in 2012 (see my What the previous government learned about birth tourism):

Last week, Macleans’ published an interview with Simrit Brar, a Calgary OB-GYN who is one of Canada’s few medical researchers to actually look into the issue of birth tourism.

It’s something that’s long been an accepted fact within Canadian birthing hospitals: Hundreds of non-resident women each year are coming to Canada in the final weeks of pregnancy, having their baby in a Canadian hospital and then immediately returning home. The purpose of the excursion being to ensure that the child has Canadian citizenship by virtue of the country’s jus soli laws.

There are companies openly advertising their services as “birth hotels.” Online forums include questions as to the “cheapest” Canadian hospital for a non-resident to give birth. In the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic, a single hospital in Richmond, B.C. had 502 non-resident births — nearly one quarter of total babies born.

Figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show that Canada hosted a record 4,400 foreign births in 2019 — up from 1,354 just nine years prior.

Vancouver’s first baby of 2023, in fact, was born to a birth tourist: Mother Salma Gasser had only recently arrived from Cairo, Egypt, on her first-ever trip to Canada, and told local reporters she did it to secure a Canadian passport for her baby girl.

There’s nothing illegal about birth tourism and birth tourists are all paying handsomely for the service (it costs between $6,000 and $10,000 for an uninsured non-resident to give birth at a Canadian hospital). But for a Canadian health-care system that is constantly on the verge of crisis, the phenomenon is having an impact.

In a two-tier system like Australia, the U.K. or the U.S., an influx of non-residents seeking health-care beds could safely exist on the sidelines without affecting overall health-care access: The system could simply grow organically to accommodate the increased demand.

But Canada rations its supply of doctors and health-care workers, meaning that any extra patient is going to be adding to wait times.

“So even if a birth tourist does pay their bill, if we allow people who have the opportunity to pay to preferentially access beds … that displaces people here,” Brar told Maclean’s.

She added that birth tourism is a “social structure issue.” Ultimately, wealthy people from abroad are able to supplant scarce Canadian health-care resources, with negative results for “disadvantaged” Canadians.

“The system is too strained for us to ignore these questions,” she said.

Brar’s research examined 102 cases of birth tourists who had their babies in Calgary between July 2019 and November 2020. A plurality (24.5 per cent) were Nigerian and all told, the 102 paid $694,000 to Alberta Health Services in hospital fees.

Notably, most of Canada’s birth tourists are coming from countries that do not offer birthright citizenship. Almost all of North and South America grants automatic citizenship based on birthplace — a principle known as “jus soli,” or “right of the soil.”

In most of the rest of the world, citizenship is determined based on the nationality of one’s parents — known as “jus sanguinis,” or “right of the blood.” If a visiting tourist gave birth in Nigeria, for instance, that child would not be considered Nigerian unless they had a Nigerian parent or grandparent.

It would be remarkably easy for Canada to ban birth tourism, or at least make it less easy.

Provincial health-care systems could dramatically raise fees on “other country” birth services in order to discourage patients not insured under the Canadian system.

Some minor tweaks to the Citizenship Act could nullify instant citizenship if a baby is born to a parent temporarily visiting Canada on a tourist visa.

Refugees, asylum-seekers and other newcomers would still have guaranteed full, automatic citizenship for their Canadian-born children.

Or, Canada could simply begin denying visas to foreign nationals booking short trips to Canada at the tail end of a pregnancy. This is what the United States did in order to curb its own rising rates of birth tourism.

In early 2020, the U.S. Department of State issued an order to deny certain classes of recreational visas to foreign nationals if a consular official believed they were doing it just to give birth.

“The Department does not believe that visiting the United States for the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for a child, by giving birth in the United States — an activity commonly referred to as “birth tourism” — is a legitimate activity for pleasure or of a recreational nature,” reads a statement from the time.

U.S. officials have also prosecuted California-based “birthing houses” for counselling foreign nationals to misrepresent their intentions on visa forms in order to enter the U.S. for the purpose of giving birth. Similar charges are feasibly possible in Canada, given that it is illegal under Canadian law to misrepresent one’s intentions for visiting.

Although birth tourism is not addressed or even acknowledged at the federal level, it’s long been deeply controversial in the immigrant-heavy Vancouver communities where it’s most visible.

Jas Johal, MLA for Richmond, has repeatedly denounced birth tourism for turning local hospitals into “passport mills.” Longtime Richmond city councillor Chak Au has often gone on record saying that his constituency — the most Chinese-Canadian in Canada — supports a legislated end to birth tourism.

In 2018, Richmond’s Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido tabled a petition in the House of Commons calling birth tourism an “abuse of Canada’s immigration and citizenship system.”

“The government should say birth tourism is bad. Let’s quantify it and let’s fix it,” he said at the time.

As recently as 2016, Vancouver-area Conservative MPs Alice Wong and Kenny Chiu even led a drive to overturn Canada’s system of birthright citizenship altogether in order to combat birth tourism — although both had reversed course by 2019, when the Conservatives prepared for that year’s election with a platform that mostly side-stepped immigration policy.

Source: FIRST READING: Canada’s massive (and easily fixed) birth tourism problem

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

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